The Academy's outer wards shifted for the third time in an hour, imperceptibly tightening, their layered geometries rearranging themselves in response to unseen pressure.
To students, it felt like nothing more than a subtle chill in the air. To those who understood mana at a deeper level, it felt like the world holding its breath.
Professor Lyrien stood alone before a floating projection of the Academy and the surrounding sky-lanes.
Her fingers moved in sharp, efficient motions, issuing silent commands through an embedded command ring.
"Seal all nonessential transit corridors," she said. "Route power from decorative arrays to sublayer barriers."
A junior strategist hesitated. "Professor, if we raise the academy's threat posture too early—"
"—we lose plausible deniability," Lyrien finished coolly. "Yes. And if we raise it too late, we lose students."
The junior swallowed and complied.
A red glyph blinked into existence near the Academy's northern quadrant.
Lyrien's eyes narrowed.
"Contact vector," she murmured. "They're testing our response time."
...
Reality folded.
Not violently.Precisely.
A sliver of void peeled open like a surgical incision, and from it emerged a vanguard node—a skeletal construct of bone-white metal and rotating sigils.
Its presence distorted the flow of mana around it, forcing nearby clouds into unnatural spirals.
Inside, masked figures watched streams of data cascade before them.
"Phase Zero complete," one said. "Academy wards adjusting as predicted."
Another frowned. "Resistance levels are higher than projected."
"Expected," a third replied. "The principal is old. Not incompetent."
A pause.
"Deploy echo probes."
The node's underside opened, releasing dozens of translucent shapes that slipped into the air like jellyfish made of glass.
...
The egg pulsed once.
Faint golden lines crawled across the shell.
Sora sighed.
"Don't hatch yet," he muttered. "This is going to get messy."
He simply waved his hand and the cracks forming on the outer shell solidified.
He sat back down again, cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, eyes closed.
And still, he couldn't focus well.
The world was… noisy.
Not sound.Not mana.
Intent.
He could feel it now, faint but multiplying—threads pulling toward the Academy, tightening, overlapping.
"So that's how it is," he murmured.
He opened his eyes.
The air in front of him rippled slightly as his perception sharpened—not outward, but inward, toward the underlying structure of things.
He could see it now.
A lattice of cause and effect stretching across the sky, heavy with decisions already made.
"That's inconvenient."
He stood.
Not hurried.Not tense.
Just… resolved.
He took one step—
—and paused.
A sensation brushed against his awareness.
...
The sky creaked.
Not audibly.
Existentially.
Something vast pressed its attention closer.
Not intervening.
Halden cracked his neck as he stepped onto the training grounds, feeling the wards thicken beneath his boots.
"Figures," he muttered. "My first year of teaching isn't even over."
A ripple of mana passed over him as a restriction lifted—just one.
Enough.
He grinned grimly.
"Alright," he said to no one in particular. "Let's see which idiot thought this was a good idea."
...
Lyra Veylen paused mid-step in the eastern corridor, fingers tightening around the strap of her satchel.
She didn't know why she stopped.
Nothing was visibly wrong. Students still moved through the halls, laughing, complaining, arguing over theory notes.
Mana-lamps glowed steadily along the walls. The Floating Academy drifted serenely through the sky as it always had.
And yet—
Something felt… off.
Lyra turned slowly, her sharp silver eyes scanning the vaulted hallway. She was tall for her age, posture straight, long ash-blonde hair tied into a high braid that swayed slightly as she moved.
Her uniform was immaculate, sleeves rolled up just enough to reveal faintly glowing runic tattoos along her wrists—family legacy marks, dormant for now.
A strategist's lineage.
A tactician's instincts.
And right now, those instincts were screaming.
"…Do you feel that?" she asked quietly.
Her friend beside her, a dark-skinned boy with wind-aspected mana, frowned. "Feel what?"
Lyra hesitated.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Like the air is… leaning."
He blinked. "That's not a thing."
She gave him a look. "It is if you're paying attention."
He shrugged, unconvinced, and continued walking. Lyra followed—but her gaze drifted upward, toward the distant towers.
And somehow, she ended up looking toward his tower.
Prince Sora.
She hadn't meant to notice him.
Really.
But it was hard not to.
He didn't act like a prince. Didn't posture. Didn't seek attention. Didn't even seem to care when people stared or whispered.
He moved through the academy like he belonged somewhere else entirely—like this place was a brief inconvenience rather than the most prestigious institution in the world.
And that combat class…
Lyra's thoughts replayed the memory unbidden.
The way Aric had attacked with confidence.The way Sora had 'not' moved. And yet...The way reality itself seemed to gently rearrange around him so that nothing ever touched him.
It wasn't just strength.
It was certainty.
As though he already knew how everything would end.
She didn't fear him.
But she was wary.
People like that changed the flow of things.
And flows were her specialty.
Lyra exhaled slowly and shook her head.
Get a grip.
She turned a corner—
—and the corridor shuddered.
Not violently.
Subtly.
A vibration passed through the stone beneath her boots, like a distant thunder trapped inside the walls.
Students stopped.
Someone laughed nervously. "Probably a drill."
Lyra didn't laugh.
Her runic tattoos flickered.
"…That wasn't a drill," she whispered.
The alarm rang.
Clear, sharp and resonant.
And somehow, that was what unsettled her the most.